


out in the flesh

by Anonymous



Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, F/M, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Serious, Sibling Incest, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Olmar's back home, but some things linger.
Relationships: Olmar/Freckled Village Girl (Vinland Saga), Thorgil/Olmar (Vinland Saga)
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	out in the flesh

**Author's Note:**

> follows [big & bad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402985). This series is about giruoru as realistic csa, not porn. @ vincestsaga on twitter for more brocontent.

It's a long voyage home for Olmar. He goes straight to bed when he gets home, just like Dad used to do sometimes. He waits for his wife. He's not sure how much Dad ever used to do that.

"I met my brother," he says when she walks in, not waiting for her to ask what's wrong.

"Oh, no," she says, in her sweet voice that makes him feel a little better, and a little worse. She has no idea what he's really talking about. He hopes, anyway.

"Everything's fine. He just said some stuff and left." Olmar shrugs, flat on his stomach in bed, face turned to one side. "It doesn't mean anything to him."

"He's still angry about the surrender." She shakes her head, sits down on the bed. "And after so many years."

"Y-Yeah." He trails his hand onto the bed frame and looks at the fabric of her dress draped over her legs. She never really knew his brother. Probably no one Olmar's age did, except for him. He was gone so much.

The worst part about it is looking at his wife and wondering if she'd even understand. If anybody can. If he's the only one in the world who ever did something so fucked up. When it's just you alone in the whole world, that makes you the freak. Even if anyone else would feel like you do, if it happened to them. Because it _didn't_ happen to them.

Maybe Thorgil's the only one who could ever understand the part of him that's stuck back there in time. Maybe his brother's always going to own that part of him.

His wife puts a hand on his back. "You made the right choice. Nobody in the village today wishes you'd kept pushing men into a fight they couldn't win, just so you could claim you beat a king at war."

"I know. I did the right thing. He was the one who wanted the wrong thing." His voice sounds dull even to him. She never mentions her dad's arms. It always takes him too long to do the right thing. And it seems like doing the wrong thing hurts way less.

"I don't understand how men can stay away from their families so long they turn into strangers. He must know you'd welcome him back if he wanted to come."

"I, u-uh..." He feels the words stumble over something thick in his throat. "I might not. We didn't always... get along the right way."

"Oh."

"But I wanted it back." For a second Olmar wants to punch the floor, then he wishes his fucking arms would just melt off and never move again. Then he feels like shit, because of his father-in-law. "I followed him. I hoped maybe he wanted something different this time. But I was fine with anything. Because I hate how things have to be now."

She keeps rubbing his back, letting him talk. He doesn't want to be calmed down. He doesn't want to hear anything helpful. The words won't stop coming and he just wants them to come out and hurt and remind him that nothing can ever fix this.

"What if I never stop wanting it back?" It feels like he's treading on dangerous ground, the kind where it'll be obvious what he's talking about. But he keeps talking. "He always makes it feel so normal. Does he trick me on purpose, or is that what it really is to him?"

He can see her searching for the right thing to say, and he loves her for that, even if it makes him feel more alone. Even if he doesn't want to hear the right thing.

"Does it make that much difference?"

"If it's normal to him..." He's thirty years old and he's _not_ going to cry in front of his wife. "...then at least it could be an accident when he hurts me."

 _"Being scared is how the weak survive. Not the strong. How do you expect to get strong if you won't fucking fight back? We're always gonna be different, you and me, until you learn to stop lying there and taking it."_ Olmar knows that's wrong now, but the words are still there. He's even figured out, finally, that Thorgil never really wanted him to get strong. Never strong enough to say no. And he is, and he hates it, until he isn't again, and he hates that even worse.

"You're a gentle man, Olmar. That's not a flaw. It's how you need to be to run a farm."

"I'm different, right? From how I used to be?"

"You are. You've grown a lot."

He looks up at her, feeling like his eyes must be lined red. "Then why is everything I want still so fucked up?"

He wants everything back that used to hurt him, everything he hasn't thought about in years. Or everything he thinks about every day and then forgets that he did. He wants to go back to when he was too stupid to know it hurt.

"I think everyone wants to be happy. By doing what they've been told will do that." She shrugs. "Some people are told different things."

"All the wrong things."

She touches his shoulder now. "I didn't grow up learning all the things a wealthy woman has to know, to take care of a fine household. But you let me have the time to learn them."

"The things I'm talking about are pretty different." He really doesn't want to say it out loud. At this point Olmar thinks his wife probably grew up _less_ sheltered than him, despite how sweet she still is, but he always hates when he has to be the one to teach her some new horrible thing about the world. 

And he doesn't want anybody to know, really. Not his family, not anybody on the farm, not a stranger halfway across the world. Even if it means there's something he and Thorgil will always share between them, Olmar doesn't want anybody knowing exactly how stupid he used to be, not even someone who'd understand. If anybody did understand, he'd probably hate them for it. The stupid immature part of him that doesn't want to be helped or fixed, that just wants to keep bleeding in private forever, because the wound has to be opened back up before it could ever heal.

"I probably would welcome him if he came back." He stares at the wall past his wife. Not the same wall he used to stare at, at least. "Don't let me." _I'd let him fuck me in this bed too, and then he'd laugh at me for it._ "If he ever shows up, don't even let me see him."

"Of course not." Her voice is unusually firm. "If he can't even act like a brother to his own blood, then he has no business being on a farm."

Olmar's pretty sure Thorgil doesn't care enough about him or the farm to ever bother coming back. He's not going to say that, though. He'd rather have people think his brother hates him for surrendering to the King than knowing he was a toy that stopped being fun. Not even a favorite toy.

It's nice to know she'd try, at least.

 _"What I don't get,"_ his brother says in his head, _"is when you're that much of a pussy—what's the point of running away? What kind of **life** are you trying to protect? Just more running?"_

"Olmar." His wife reaches for his hand. "Are you all right? You said you were fine with anything, but you don't look fine with whatever happened."

"It's nothing. I'm just thinking."

"You always said working helps. When the thoughts won't stop coming."

"I guess so." For the first time he wonders if Dad worked so hard all those years because he had thoughts he was trying to get away from. Too late to ask now.

"Your work is making things grow. If his isn't, then he has no place being where you are." She smooths his hair down a little. "I liked you even before you started to change, you know. You were a gentle boy even back then."

Olmar knows, most of the time, that his brother was wrong. Is wrong. But in the moments when it seems again like Thorgil might be right, all he can tell himself is that he's committed now to running away. There's nothing else he can keep doing.


End file.
